So a lot of people have covered this already, but I feel like some might still get the wrong impression from this, as if manufacturers today are cutting costs at the expense of safety, and “they don’t make em like they used to”. Modern bricks are made more with small air pockets in them like a sponge, for several reasons. One; to lighten the load (and certainly reduce a bit of labour cost). Two; reduces the affects of temperature, moisture and high winds expanding and contracting and causing structural issues, as they would very easily with older bricks. Three; makes heating/cooling the interior easier without resorting to types of insulation like asbestos. Four; makes them cheaper and easier to produce in the first place. Five: reduces the thickness of walls necessary just to support their own weight. Modern day buildings don’t use bricks as load-bearing walls; they’re basically just there to keep the weather out, and don’t need to be as strong. Older buildings used brick walls as load-bearing walls, so they had to be tougher, thicker and heavier… meaning much more expensive, more reliant on asbestos insulation, and more likely to crack or rot under wide swings in temperature or heavy moisture. They were also much less safe in the event of hurricanes/tornados, earthquakes, etc. Of course there’s also a “survivorship bias” element - these are bricks that were built strong enough to last, rather than your average old brick from 1980/1950. The 2021 brick was likely just an “average” brick, not a particularly strong one for the day.
Agreed, engineering is way more than just designing the strongest object. There are many more facets that are involved especially in modern day buildings. People seem to forget that regulations have dramatically increased since the 1950's and objects that were fine then would not adhere to modern building codes now.
tbh was even wondering if/in wich manner the age of the brick/effect of time were not changing their property to start with along with the idea you mentioned that those were clearly among the good one since well they susrvived till now ^^
Well they don't make 'em like they used to; But that don't mean that any corners have been cut. What it does mean, is that methods of manufacturing, and mass production, have changed. I mean we can't all be building like the Ancient Egyptians, and have our buildings stand the test of time; It would take far too long, and far too many resources, to do so.
Actually i have read somewhere that buildings also need Oxygen ! Without oxygen for 5 seconds all building will collapse instantly like a house of cards
The strength of concrete depends on the cement content and the age. Lower cement content, less strength. Also, concrete doesn’t set, it goes off, it is a chemical reaction more than a drying. This means it will keep getting stronger for possibly hundreds of years.
It also looked like the "modern concrete" sample was uneven and the force was concentrated on small areas, where the older sample looked very smooth and the force was spread evenly. That could have been a factor with the bricks as well.
@@KairiPluck Generally, old concrete structures fail or need repair due to durability issues caused by the steel reinforcement. Structural failure is rarely due to loss of concrete compressive strength
@@teoengchin ...why making them with steel reinforcement then? If they are a weak point? If they fail before cement? Nah. I doubt steel is more fragile than cement. It can't be like that. The strongest bridges are steel only.
Sorry, but you’re wrong there, chap. I knew it the very day I made that brick that it was destined to be seen by the world through a yet unknown “magic light.”
One thing to note is the use of each, for instance, the antique concrete was taken from a fort meant to withstand artillery shells while the modern one was most likely commercial concrete which I would assume would be weaker. Also the modern brick maintained its shape and load bearing potential much longer than the initial crack, up to 5200 kg.
My favorite engineering principal is that you're only done engineering when there's nothing left for you to take away. A modern brick is strong enough to make a house of, and not a significant amount stronger. I'm sure it's lighter, easier to work with, consumes less materials and time to create and is a more economical solution than bricks of 1890.
@@stvden no it isn't. I live a pre 20th century home and my power usage both electric and gas are 1/3 the area average as calculated by my service providers.
@@1199ccttv If you live in an earthquake hazard area, it doesn't matter how strong the brick is, it'll be a pile of rubble with you underneath if it hasn't been seismically retrofitted. As has been mentioned in other comments, modern brick is never used for structural applications unlike with the old buildings, it is mostly just used for aesthetics.
The outcome of this test had so many variables such as material quality, production skill, manufacturing location, material age, material depth/width/length, placement etc. It was enjoyable & interesting to watch!
No.. I'm saying, the testing method is just a method for easy comparison.. The way it's manufactured, I'm intimate with every method of brick manufacture and QC has been half my life trying to build an independent brand name.. Every part of production is important in determining its end quality, but raw material and the burning process determines hardness, manufacturing determines its finish look (contry to untrained eyes, rough surfaces is better than smooth)
That is so funny and original dude. I'm sure you weren't waiting for the day you'd get recommended this guy's video again so you could repeat the same unfunny joke that's made on every other one of his videos. Honestly bravo, you really blew this one out of the park. I literally laughed my ass off.
I found it a bit melancholy to see that last block of concrete from 1890 finally go. Something about it having been around for so long, and still lasting longer than all the others. I wonder how long it would have been around into the future
1890 cannot actually be called "antique", it's literally just a bit more than 1 century back. Only items which do not tend to survive as long (i.e books) have higher value if they are more than 100 years old. Many people still live in houses which are much older than that.
I remember as a kid of 8 years old a guy was laying new sidewalk. He told me the concrete takes 24 hours to get half strength and 24 years to get full strength. I'm 63 now. Interesting the things you remember. Very interesting video.
in Italy the curing of the concrete is considered completed after 28 days (after which it can receive bearing loads) and reaches the final strength in 3-4 years. It depends on many factors
I've already said this, and it's a very risky thing to say. Imagine you are on an island, and there is another island over there. And you want to conquer it. And they are ruled by a strong leader. "Oh but they are disciplined, and they obey their leader. It's impossible to defeat them." Ah, then we will impose democracy on them. Democratic propaganda! We will promote the most democratic way. "Oh, but they have nationalism! They will sacrifice themselves to protect their land." Ah, we will spread globalist ideology. Remove all notions of nationalism and patriotism, promote these ideas as evil. Turn them against each other so they will hate their own country and race. "Oh, but they also have incredible faith in God! They have such faith in God that they never abandon the front." Ah, then let's promote atheism and hedonism. Church time is over. From now on, only night clubs and pornography. They must be open about sex. "Oh, but the youth are healthy and strong. They're in formidable shape. They are the way the Creator made them: in his image." Ok then, from now on McDonald's, Coca-Cola, drugs, alcohol, video games. Let them be fat, lazy, weak, domesticated, undisciplined. We must abolish military service. "Ah... yeah but the other thing is that they are homogenous. They are a single people, a single race. There is no ethnic chaos." Ok, then in whatever way, we must send them boats with foreigners - whites, blacks, Asians, Muslims, Chinese. "But they have a lot of babies! 6 or 7 babies on average! They're happy to have large families!" Ok, from now on promote abortion, birth control pills. They must be individualistic and reject starting a family. You have now defeated that island without firing a single bullet.
I think there's more to consider than just hardening over time. There's also a survivorship bias. The bricks created so long ago which survived until today were likely the stronger bricks made to begin with. The ones with critical imperfections would have been broken already, leaving the superior bricks to be tested now. Today's bricks haven't had that 'test of time', so you're likely testing a mid or sub-quality brick against a superior brick, even if they were made exactly the same way of the same stuff.
You have to also remember that modern bricks are produced in much more uniform manner; there's less quality variation, since more things in the process of making them are optimized further and controlled more closely. Thus; while there are less "weak" bricks made, there are also less "superior" bricks made.
Also, stronger does not necessarily means better Who needs a brick that can withstand 2 tons when in your particular application you only need 500kg ? We are much better at saving materials today than we were 100 years ago (on this particular topic)
> There's also a survivorship bias. No there is not. There are literally tens of thousands of buildings with old bricks in Europe. They are all there and they are not really losing any bricks.
Do realize it changes everything when you go from a small surface area on the press to the large surface area used for the concrete. You should keep the same surface area for the first test through the last test to keep consistency and accuracy
Hey, materials engineer here. Concrete hardens as it ages, chemical reactions within the concrete from both whatever you put into it (called additives in the batching process) and from the environment in which it is used allows the material to increase its compressive and tensile strength. A fun fact, in modern concrete (if memory serves) every day that strength increases by about 1-2% from pouring to about a year to a year and a half depending on environment. also worth noting that the modern concrete was not 'fired' at a very high temperature (you know, concrete...no kiln....), you can tell my by fact it sort of just falls apart softly.Note that this is why rebar is so important for concrete, its the composite material of these two separate components that gives us the properties and behavior we desire for so many of its applications. Whereas the older pieces fail with an audible sound, and flake like a mini shale deposit into platelets. This is evidence of a higher firing temperature, which given the construction methods of the time, does not surprise me. On the extreme end of high temperature firing, the brick that exploded into two pieces is an excellent example, though you can find samples where the break is as if you cut it with a knife, with little if any flaking. those are my favorite as they can reach 400k compressive force before failing, and you get a nice cross section! :)
Hey, material engineer... Are you aware the bricks are CLAY not concrete! lol! Do admit that modern bricks are trash, for obvious reason that they are porous like cheese! Water that gets into those holes and freeze in winter shatters them like a cookie!
Kind of interesting as someone that lives in a house built around 1945! Think one of the things worth noting though at least with the house I live in, is that the bricks do all the heavy lifting as we have no solid walls in the interior of the house (yes this means that we can move them at wanted, which is kind of cool!) So that probably accounts for some of the extra strength needed as modern houses certainly have interior walls that help take the weight.
The concrete compression tests were actually very interesting as it continues to cure for decades after pouring so it's hard to say if modern mixes are better tan the older ones
The tests were not made in equal conditions, since the "modern" concrete is pure concrete, you can see it being converted to dust, but the older concrete has gravel on is composition, so it makes it stronger, since it has more properties for being a composite material. That's one of the reason it could hold more load.
@@alejandroguerra3411 Well nowadays concrete in general does not contain any gravel anymore, because sandbased concrete became the standard. The only thing that nowadays reinforces concrete are steel insertions, also only used on specific points of a building with a higher contact pressure and weightload.
FYI: Modern brickas are intentially produced with air pockets so that it lighten the burden of brick layers. Of course they arent as sturdy. Also, modern bricklaying is usually laid as a shell wall and isnt load bearing in the same way that it used to. It's more of an expensive yet efficient weather surface.
Exactly. Buildings are basically made of steel concrete. The bricks are just aesthetic. The steel inside the concrete deals with the tension forces for the most part.
No , supply in demand. And different buildings practices. Brick layers are not worried about weight. It’s all about Portland to sand ratio. More bricks are needed now then ever in are history. And with a lot of Portland shortages bricks are not made the same
Also worth nothing that the bricks are being compressed in the wrong orientation in this video. I don’t know if modern bricks have any sort of grain structure in them to act as rebar but it’s more than possible that they do
In my experience doing masonry restoration those old brick (from before the days of hydraulic presses in brick manufacture) are a fair bit softer than modern brick. It's interesting to see that the old brick showed the most tensile strength. Maybe not the most scientific test, but fun.
@Bobbybob Breaking "easier" is relative. I used to work on equipment in labs. I had one that needed to hold pressure and we were at 3000 feet above sea level. The company was bought out by an international corporation who thought they could save money by replacing the glass chamber with plastic. So when the equipment, used to measure blood counts, very sensitive, could not hold pressure anymore they replaced it with a newer improved plastic one. TWICE. Before I got hold of the supervisor of the supervisor and explained WHY plastic did not work at our elevation the way it does at sea level and they found me a glass one that does not BEND at a different elevation therefore not doing the job I needed it to BREAKING the machine.
@@Carebear_Pooh You could bring it over to my living room. I've got to use this press for something as the misses is starting to accuse me of wasting money on it, and it IS kind of in the way of the telly. :D
note that in a real building the weight would be distributed far more evenly across the bricks, letting them withstand vastly heavier loads also note that the newer brick is probably lighter so the load it would have to bare in a modern building is realistically smaller
Older clay bricks were hand packed so there were much less air bubbles in the brick when they were fired, however they were also 10 times as expensive than today conventional bricks.
The value of $100 in 2022 is worth approximately $3.50 cents in 1913 dollars. What you're describing as cheaper is actually just inflation, and being conditioned to accept lesser quality goods.
@@JohnDoe-xf2ke Except if you adjust for inflation they are still much more expensive. There's a reason people mechanized things, it's because you can make much more with a machine than if you had a to pay a person to pack them all by hand.
@@aaronsondag8347 The issue with that thinking though is that just because the brick is stronger under tension doesn't mean its more suitable for the job, being efficient is all about focusing the maximum amount of necessary effort for the most effective completion of a job in specialized and particular ways. A better tensile strength for a brick doesn't mean it lasts longer or is more efficient. This is how you save money and get the most effect, now if you could demonstrate that these mass produced cheaper bricks serve worse for their specific function that would justify the increased cost, then sure, but until you do economics is against you.
The compression test is still technically a beam test since the bricks only make 3 contact points on the flat anvil. Ideally, a bed of sand or something to fill in the unevenness/gaps between the brick and metal base would probably produce more accurate numbers.
No, it's not a beam test. Yes, there are 3 contact points, but that's not enough for a bending test. To get proper bending stresses, the beam length should be at least 3 times, better 5 times the height of the beam (beam theory). For shorter beams, the stress distribution will not behave like a beam under bending, as shear stresses will occur in a non-negligible size. And here in the test the failure is clearly shear based. If it would be normal stress based, the crack would start at the bottom below the load introduction point. However you are right in one point: a gap filler under the supports and load introduction point would be better to avoid stress peaks and lead to a better comparability between the tests. And usually the load introduction points have ball joints / spherical supports.
@@johnscaramis2515 @ 3:03 the crack starts at the bottom…which indicted the bottom surface is in tension and the top is in compression. Which is very beam like at the start. It would be very interesting to see what happens with the brick on a “mortar” bed since bricks are primarily only used in compression.
Agreed. None of these tests actually tell us anything about these bricks. Hell, the 1890's brick is much taller than the rest, so being stronger only means.. well, means it's taller. Also, these bricks are stressed between mortar and between other rows of mortared bricks, meaning that the compression load is spread throughout the brick. Tension (beam) loads may be seen during settling but severe settling of a foundation is going to break just about any construction material, so they're pretty irrelevant.
It’s worth noting that a lot of buildings and structures in the industrial period were heavily over engineered, to the extent that bridges and aqueducts are still present today’s despite having fallen into disuse. They have effectively outlived their operational lifespan. There’s a reason “they don’t build them as they used to” is a saying, since many structures presist over several generations of family despite long becoming inadequate for function. It’s likely that the newer bricks are less tempered, either as a cost cutting method or to preserve material. But that those new bricks are likely still perfectly fit for its intended purpose. In particular, in the UK we don’t have any earthquakes so the sheer strength isn’t particularly important.
@@lordbiscuitthetossable5352 There's absolutely truth to that. To the many who complain that we live disposably, we absolutely can build things to outlive the lifespan of Roman structures, but no one wants to pay for it. What we seem to lack now is foresight and desire to make the structures that need to last, last. I'd also add that a brick house doesn't need bricks that could be at the bottom of a 30 story building. The old way was not "let's make everything last forever" so much as "we can't calculate how much stress will be on this part so let's make everything big and heavy enough to that we don't have to worry about it." That's a rather wasteful practice, not a noble one. If they used those highly kilned bricks for houses, it's more likely because logistics chains were not sufficient to stock and deliver as many types of bricks as we have now. All that to say, between what you brought up (use case is important) and other things, reality is much more complex than the usual "they don't build things like they used to because society is lazy".
Old bricks were used as load bearing structural support. Modem masonry bricks ADD load to the structure, rather than being load bearing, so they are intentionally made lighter. This is highlighted by the fact that he tested a modern load bearing brick towards the end of the test, and it did far better than any of the others.
2 comments about the "concrete" blocks at the end. 1- The first one wasn't concrete, it was mortar. It had no aggregate in it which makes it stronger and makes it concrete. It also seemed to have an abnormal amount of sand. 2- Concrete takes several years to fully cure. 24-48 hours for foot and light vehicle traffic. 28 days for heavy equipment. Decades to reach maximum strength.
I was pretty upset with the “new concrete” shit literally looks like quick Crete from Home Depot. I’m a laborer “construction worker” and I was like where the fuck is the aggregate. Look at the old Crete compared to the new it looks like 411 stone sand mixed with water and a low concentration of cement and poured stupid wet to make it easy to deal with.
Yes exactly, and the moden red brick was fired at lower temerature than the old ones. The lighter hue of red shows. Every stepof the production of bricks matters. And if a brick doesn`t have to withstand high pressure the production costs are lowered such as lowering the firering temperature or duration.
My brother used to do this for an engineering firm called Gracie when he graduated college. All he did all day was pull samples that were from the same batch as Bridges and other structures all over the country, and he crushed them. Bricks and concrete DO get stronger with age, but they also become brittle and less impact resistant. He did 100+samples a day.
@@chimei-tekinaneko8318 A shame, too, because all the lies of the past two years have me hungry for real, tangible information andbas boring as it seems, we just watch this video so the concept has some merit. I yearn to know about the fundamentals.
Also, my guess is modern bricks more closely ride the line between cost and strength required to meet the needs of the application, so it's not surprising to find a modern brick performing worse in shear strength and as good or better in compression strength. I would bet those modern bricks are a fraction of the cost of the 130 year old bricks were, when adjusted for inflation, yet still fit for purpose.
@you dont know me Well I'm not saying they have no shear strength. I'm just saying that it's not as important as compressive strength when building a building.
The hydraulic press contact points play an important role in the results for each of the brick types. While a single brick can fracture, keep in mind that it's more likely to lose it's bond to adjacent bricks - meaning the mortar mixture could be the source of a structure compromise. You can scale this concept with concrete and see the agregate rocks holding up to forces much longer than the rest of the mixture that bonds it. So, engineers purposely reduced brick hardness over time as they saw use of steel framing increasing in construction. The most fair way to evaluate a single brick is to mortar it to the test device so surface contour contact is uniform.
The newer ones have more air inside them and not as solid as bricks from the 50s and the 1890s. Either way I think the newer ones would've broke because the ones from then were made better.
@@theterminator3907 but does it matter? I think they realized that bricks didn't need to be that strong to begin with, so they did increase air pockets, which deceased strength, but also deceased cost of material. Probably also adds to thermals with all the air gaps in the brick.
@@YouTrolol well it did matter back then, but no not now. We don't really build buildings for defence anymore... really we don't build defense at all unless you count a tank maybe? Again though a tank is more offense than it is defense...
For entertainment, this was interesting. However, as a true test of identifying the failure of each brick or concrete block is flawed. First, testing the tension of brick is not a valid test as bricks and concrete is designed for compression with very little tension qualities. Second, you used the broken bricks from the tension test to perform the compression tests. Each brick’s size was different and were already damaged by the tension test. When a brick made of clay or concrete properties will changed from the tension test with many micro cracks from the tension failure. Regarding the concrete test, a few issues. First, the fresh concrete was not given enough time to harden to its designed compression strength. It was also tested “on end” as it was obvious this was poured into a wooden mold. That will affect the crystal structure of the concrete. As has been pointed out by others aging the concrete is needed to maximize its’s strength. The “old” block you compared it to is like comparing apples and oranges. That “building” you cut it from could have been designed for handling pounding by cannon balls. The grain in it shows some form of additional material was embedded into the concrete, most likely granite gravel. It may sound like I’m criticizing your demonstration, however, as a long time viewer I enjoy your work. In this case, however, I don’t want people coming away thinking “old is good”. Today’s building materials are subjected to close scrutiny by engineers to avoid the failures you show. In many instances every pour of concrete are subject to presses like yours to ensure they pass the specifications set for the intendant project,.Still fun to watch where the failures occurred in each of the materials.
The "Modern" concrete was lacking aggregate(gravel). This severely reduced its strength, and does not resemble the vast majority of current concrete mixtures.
@@stevenshewey7851 Yupp seemed like pure mortar with too much water content. Proper concrete should take about 3 tonnes per square inch and that's by hand mixing it. More refined mixtures are done in concrete plants. In addition concrete needs to cure for at least 30 days or more before any work is done on it. It needs to be shrunk slowly so if you are in a hot region you need to wet it daily. Taking pretty fresh mortar is pretty impressive e that it withstood 6 tonnes.
Even if you wanted to argue and say "old stronger", The amount of time, money, and processing invovled to create a modern building out of modern materials isn't even a competition for what constitutes marginal strength differences under flawed testing circumstances at best.
I love how in the beginning they say "don't do this at home" as if I had an hydraulic press just in my room or something Edit: y'all in the comments saying that you have one, send me one to Uruguay, I want that Phineas and Ferb experience too
About 20 years ago, my family bought an old brick warehouse built in the 1920’s. For some of the remodeling work, we had to cut through the exterior wall, a section of about 6x3x1 feet (the wall being a foot thick). Even with jackhammers that was an all day job.
The wall was probably stronger from the beginning… as you can see most things were made to last as much time as possible until programmed obsolescence became a thing
@@furtado.g_ If the wall was a foot thick, that means that it was structural bricks. And for that same record, many of the old brick buildings in my town had crumbled near the bottom from moisture and had holes through them where the brick crumbled. Old buildings will degrade and fall apart without any kind of maintenance and they do it all of the time. Just take a drive through any town with old brick buildings and not a lot of money. My town recently started booming again and as a result, many of the old buildings were being fixed up, which generally meant repointing entire walls of crumbling mortar or straight out cutting sections of the walls out to redo them. Hell, the entire outer layer of one of the most well known buildings in town crumbled off last year. They wrapped the entire building in plastic wrap to prevent further damage (beer company bought it and are supposed to be rehabbing the whole block) Why are so many people hell bent on proving old brickwork was better than anything ever. What we see standing is only what has survived throughout the ages. It's called survivor bias.
Man, for brittle substrates you gotta use a deforming buffer between the press surfaces and object like a piece of plastic or rubber so the sharp edges, imperfect surface angles and grains don't concentrate force and cause premature fracture. i see this type of thing on many hydraulic press channels and it is really frustrating. Thank you for the video though!
I thought about that too, but I thought any high spots in the brick should take care of themselves when under that load. Maybe they could mortar steel plates to the top and bottom? Mortar may be imperfect too, but it’s the kind of imperfection they have to deal with in the real world.
As someone who has broke a many of concrete cylinders, what kind of aggregate did that modern concrete block have? When it split it just chipped with no larger rocks in sight. I’ve pressed some class S for bridge structures that popped as high as the 1890 fortress structure. To be fair on average it was about 4 tons per SI (so the point that the old stuff is better still applies), but just making sure we’re testing structural grade concrete. The modern break looked like a lot of class A cylinders I used to break, mainly used for sidewalks.
i am from south america (chile) and concrete is very strictly regulated here for the structures since we have a lot of earthquakes, just using any concrete wouldnt do the work, is quite amazing when we have a 7 to almost 8 richter scale earthquake and we have barely any damage meanwhile other countries structures that are not design for this natural disaster can go down with much lower scale values.
We in Japan have the same doctrine. During the 2011 earthquake, it was a wild sight to watch skyscrapers in downtown Shibuya flex left and right without falling. Built to last!
same on my country El Salvador, we had some serious earthquakes over the past years and most of the modern buildings are OK. But building here is expensive because of that
The reason for the modern brick breaking so early in your first test scenario is due to the way it was produced: An extruder press is used that basically pushed clay forward through a mouth press. that forward push is done by a mechanism that looks like an archimedean screw. The result is a circular turbulance within the clay that is almost impossible to see but still there. Look at 1:10 - that circular breakage is exactly due to the spin in the screw. other than that dont be fooled. there is an insane number of different materials and processes for both bricks and concrete which has the most impact on these tests. this video might make you believe that old materials were better, but thats not true unless you compare apples to apples (in wich case modern facturing wins) also please consider that "harder is better" is actually not the goal here. both soft and hard bricks are produced deliberately for their very own purpose.
@@trolojolo6178 you may do that. but since i work in the field of restoration of historical ceramics (bricks and tiles) i have a pretty broad experience when it comes to those materials. 19th centuries bricks were in a much higher demand than they are now (pretty extreme city grow and a lot more % of buildings used bricks than now). Combined with the fact that long range transport was a lot less economical - the bricks were produced in close proximity to large cities, not necessarily at places where clay was at the highest quality. In addition their kiln ran with coal, which cannot be run stable at an intended temperatur for a certain time like modern gas or electric kilns do. are there bricks from the 19th century that are very dense and sturdy? absolutly! can they compete with the maximum that is possible today? nope.
If it's one thing I've learnt from being in construction is that cement gets stronger with age, and I'm pretty sure the same goes for these clay bricks, so the older should be stronger
As a bricklayer and owner of my own masonry company, I can explain this pretty quickly. In the past, bricks were used for the main structure of a building, so they needed to be stronger. They were the main thing that holds up the floors and roof. Today's bricks are just used for DIY paver projects, or siding to wrap the face of a wooden building. In the US, we almost never use bricks in a structural way anymore, unfortunately. We just use them as decorative pieces. So they dont need to be as dense. All that being said, you can look at bricks from different cultures dating back to ancient times and there are some bricks with a very low PSI (around 400lbs) and orhers closer to 1,200. I personally never cared much for PSI ratings because we don't houses by the square inch, but by the yard, if anything. Take any weaker material and increase its overall body mass to the size of the empire State building and I guarantee you it will be a strong structure. Size matters.
The older bricks were probably meant for structural purposes so they had to resist more compression forces while modern bricks are often used only as divisory elements so the dont have to resist as much, nowadays concrete structure is what resist the weight of the building.
I worked for a brick manufacturer, not actually making them just in the office but I do recall there were different types of bricks for different purposes. Engineering bricks were extremely hard, apparently designed to build viaducts.
@@anthyatt6904 Pretty much this. A lot like those 'They Don't Make them Like they Used to Videos' just comparing an old and new thing at random completely lacks context. That doesn't mean modern structural bricks aren't also weaker, but if they are, it's probably because their use cases are well known and the stresses they'll endure are well understood and their load capacity is probably much more consistent.
one of the real world problems you see with old concrete is that it was inconsistent. each Manson had his own technique and methods and they would often through construction debris into the mix. random rocks and chunks or brick etc. i recently demolished some concrete cannon stands from the late 1800s because they began to crumble. water eventually found its way into a piece of brick inside which freezes and expands during the winter and it slowly broke them apart from the inside.
This isn't concrete. But the same rules apply. And if it was quality? Older concrete is always stronger. Its beem curing for 100's of years. Try chipping, core drilling, wall sawing or wire sawing old concrete. Its a fucking paind it it is either black or blue on the inside. Slurry speaks for itself
I think the reason why modern red brick is more fragile than older bricks is that red brick isn't really used as a building material anymore since it's been replaced by concrete, rebar, and cinder blocks and is more decorative so the material is either cheaper or made to be more aesthetically pleasing than durable.
Isn't the modern brick "weaker" in comparison because it has trapped air in it to help in thermal insulation, thus lowering heating costs for the building their used in and reduce waste of materials to heat buildings, while still being usually strong enough by magnitudes than it needs to be?
In many modern construction methods the brick facade lays outside the moisture envelope with a small air gap between: they aren't structural at all except to hold themselves up. The insulation of the house is typically inside the envelope. The air gap is to allow condensation a way out. So bricks can help with insulation as yet another layer, but I'd suspect lighter weight bricks are easier to make, transport, and handle.
Actually modern bricks are made using machines that shape, cut and cook them instantly, like a production line, while old brocks were cooked in ovens over days, letting the material form bonds and structure itself, making it stronger. Also most good clay deposits were exhausted long ago, so modern bricks use clay of lesser quality.
Probably also depends on what you want the brick/concrete used for. You dont want to used fortress strength materials or something like pool patio the may or may not be torn down at some point.
Keep in mind, you can only test the 'old ones' that survived. Thats always a thing you have to keep in mind. I dont know where the bricks came from but if it is the only 'in one part' remainder of an old building these tests can be deceptive. Because it are the strongest ones
This is why 2000 year old ancient structures are still standing and anything build the last 20 years already needs repairs This video is a perfect metaphor for the greed and quality in the Western world.
You could draw the conclusion that things aren't built to last as they used to be, but maybe we found out that bricks and concrete doesn't have to be as strong to do its job right. Weighing the bricks beforehand would have yielded some useful info as maybe the bricks are also twice as heavy. Seeing as lighter bricks only have to support half the weight as the bricks placed on top would also be lighter, it's just more cost efficient and less straining on natural resources
With the modern concrete, you can tell the force was coming in at an angle, as one corner was higher up, skewing the results. Putting all the force on one point creates more shear force than when the weight is distributed across the entire area, so the actual load bearing capacity of all those materials is a lot higher than what's shown here, but the relative strength of the materials is compared pretty effectively for the bricks, since they were subjected to the same process every time.
With basic "modern" engineering you can tell that concrete is actually soft. That's why they use rebar to reinforce it. That's also why galloping Gertie was able to flex and how "modern" sky scrapers are able to sway (look that up if you think it's not a thing). Yes the corner was higher... The test was probably skewed by a max of 3% from that. A "perfect" block would give numbers within the margin of error when compared to the one we just saw.
And if anyone is curious another reason concrete is soft is to allow it to expand and contract when it gets cold or hot. It also takes an extremely long time to fully "cure" since it would not be desirable for it to cure before it fully settles. There are many different recipes for concrete and everywhere in the world is different. This is why we have engineers. They will figure out how much of each ingredient to put in for the type of climate and type of earth under it. They will make it less porus and more malleable in colder climates that are more prone to freezing past a certain point of depth. That way your foundation doesn't just crack after one winter (water expands when it freezes and WILL crack your foundation).
@Error im Codingkeller The old bricks actually all have a slight positive curve, if they had been flipped "upside down", I believe they would break much, much earlier.
It would have been more interesting to test the bricks the same way you did the concrete, as bricks are designed to take weight over their whole surface area and not just focused on a certain point.
Since I haven't seen anybody mention it, I'd like to add that the concrete taken from the fortress was intended for military defense, being as it's a fortress, while the other block of concrete was likely just some home project concrete from a bag from the store. Surely if you took modern fortress defense concrete and compared it to historic fortress defense concrete the results would be different
Yeah, and if they wanted the test to be more legit, they would have made rebar enforced concrete. Let's see how much force that can take since most structural concrete these days has rebar in it. Still a neat video.
I test concrete - I was basically checked out on any scientific level when I saw them stop counting the compressive strength of the 2021 brick at 3800 kg when the corner fell off. (2:40) The center, directly under the load, continued to bear weight up to 5000 kg. If you want an actual strength test you need to cut the brick down to a cross-section smaller than the ram. Ideally you also want to sulfur/mortar cap the sample for absolute even application of the weight. You're also using uneven sample sizes, so raw numbers ("this brick broke at X weight") don't mean anything, you need pounds/pascals per square inch to have a real comparison.
Not only to mention that you need multiple samples and a statistical analysis for outliers and what you expect. There’s so many things here that wouldn’t pass ASTM standards as testing a material.
thats why i love the comment section, thank you for explaining the flaws of this test. I dont test concrete but this testing didnt felt right or fair to me... even bc i believe we use different ways to build houses and much much more reliable materials that hold and distribuite way better the weight and energy of the building.
Awesome and informative test, although you'd need a larger sample size to be sure... plus shaving flat spots on the contact points to ensure they are all equally supported.
@@dustymiller65 It's not about pleasing anyone, it's about being consistent. The contact points on those bricks are not the same. The ones farther to the middle will be much more resistant to breaking.
@@endgovernmentextremism To me, they're just bricks; some old some new, but bricks nonetheless. BUT, my geekish friend--I see your point now; so I agree with you. ✓
I'm beginning to see now that the breakage test should correctly aligned with the normal axis for the standard brick's normal usage. That would just make more sense.
A good comparison is to convert the kg to Newton’s/kg taking into the account the density of the bricks, secondly cement is a hydrate reaction and increases strength over time. I worked for a cement company and experienced the breaking of 10, 15 and 20 year old 100mm standard cubes, the building shook when they broke, took the crushing machine to near its maximum load.
@@michaelkaster5058 there is a way to make concrete suitable for sea water, using ground blast furnace slag or pulverised fly ash together with ground limestone which greatly increases the concrete strength and resilience to sea water attack. I worked on a project which uses self compacting concrete with PFA and limestone powder in a concrete mix and it produced excellent results, it didn’t need any compacting poker methods just a straight pour, very interesting reactions taking place.
One reason why the older bricks have a higher shear strength is that concrete mixtures become harder over time. This is easily demonstrable by performing 7,14, 28, & 56 day cylinder breaks on the same concrete mixture. The vast difference though is not explained by this hardening effect. What does explain it is the reformulation to create lighter bricks which significantly reduce both shipping costs and back injuries. These two factors account for the fastest increasing factors in the cost of bricks. The final consideration is insulation value. polystyrene is added to our many of our current brick formulations which lowers the weight increases the R-Value, and unfortunately reduces the compressive strength. However, this reduction is negligible in the bricks performance when installed. Very interesting video!
It really makes me wonder: how strong can bricks be made today if they were designed to be as strong as possible? Today's bricks are typically made with different applications vs just holding up walls.
everyone's talking about the bricks getting harder over time while I'm over here appreciating the fact that we even made machines that can put thousands of pounds worth of force on like this
@@sohailape I used to get nightmares in my sleep of getting caught in a massive combine or meat grinder. Some scary stuff. Or I’d get dreams of getting ran over by a train.
4:55 concrete can still be wet years or decades down the line so I'm not surprised... The new ones is definitely still very wet and you can tell with how it's almost like sand when crumbling.
I’m a builder and have overseen and QC’d tens of thousands of bricks installed. Modern bricks, full of air bubbles and cavities for better insulation value and freeze tolerance, are used for facades with the actual structure being concealed behind them with an air gap and usually some type of water proof insulation like mineralwool. Bricks actually are a very brittle building material and are rarely used for any type of load bearing anymore. There are much better modern techniques that are hidden behind the brick wall you see that won’t collapse should a wall get hit, as would happen with a traditional brick wall.
For a builder you do not seem to know an awful lot. There are still massive victorian viaducts consisting of millions of bricks still carrying heavy loads to this day, over a hundred years later. Your cheap imported chinese air bricks you use to cut costs will not stand the test of time as not whatever you’re building
@@Brandalar using your logic, we should all be be living in pyramids. I also was unaware that they had our modern bubble-filled non-structural bricks back in the Victorian era. It’s almost like the techniques and materials have evolved since then to become more sustainable, energy efficient and affordable to the masses….? I don’t know what China has to do with this? Bricks are cheaper to produce and ship domestically than import. About the only material we import is quarried stone for countertops, but only when we are buying a literal boat load. And that’s made by Mother Nature. We use CMU’s (aka “cinder blocks”) filled with concrete and rebar if we need a structural masonry wall nowadays. They are significantly more resilient and stronger than stacked bricks. Or we use precast concrete. Or steel. Or cast in place concrete. Or prefab wall panels. Or one of a hundred other methods. For being some pretentious guy in the RUclips comment section, you know about as much as I expected you to.
@@baddestmofoalive The pyramids still stand, as do many victorian and roman architecture because they were built well and to last, something 21st century building knows nothing about because of muh "sustainability, affordability and energy efficiency". This is just cutting costs for the coin counters up top and importing cheaper material and labor whilst you build with sub-par materials and people for the sake of "saving the planet", lmao. This video perfectly shows how quality has gone down over the years and you are just coping with your trash bricks
@@Brandalar you are trying to sound intelligent about modern building materials and techniques. You are failing. Cutting costs and finding more efficient ways to make housing affordable is very important for society. You clearly have no real world experience, and it’s painfully obvious. Edit: I see you deleted your most ignorant post. Good call.
Sadly those "newer" (even 10years+ back) type of bricks tend to have humidity in them,reject it and wite spots appear. Not good for visuals appearence.
@@senatuspopulusqueromanus2082 whatever insulation is provided by the air is miniscule. 99.9% is provided by extra materials such as PU, polystyrene, rockwool, even tenths of an inch will do a lot better than some bubbles in the bricks. No, it's about poor quality. Most "bricks" some today are not actually bricks, but ceramic blocks incapable of holding their own weight past ground floor. Cheaper, crappier, "modern".
One could argue bricks don’t need to bare as much weight these days as their use is generally limited to small structures like homes and aren’t required to support heavy materials like they did in the past.
The first test is effectively a tension test. The bottom half of the bricks experience tension forces as the brick tries to “bend” to match the forces. (BTW, bricks, concrete, and the likes are awful at sustaining high levels of tension.) The compression tests are much closer to what the bricks will behave like in normal use cases.
Interesting, but the tests lacked any form of surface prep/normalization. Contact surfaces of the bricks were not smooth, thus loading was focused on relatively small, localized points.
I mean, let's be real, it's a brick, they are produced in huge masses and it is not very realistic to expect them to have smooth surfaces, I don't know how strict the tolerances are for bricks but I expect noticable imperfections due to their brittleness. Having a rough surface like in the video is more realistic than doing the test on a smooth surface I'd say. Of course, even though the test is more realistic it would require a much larger sample size to judge the performance of the average brick due to the randomness of the imperfections. Then again, I'm not a civil/constructional engineer, maybe I'm underestimating the brick standards. Edit: I googled the tolerances and it doesn't incredibly strict imo. The imperfections are measured in entire milimeters and there are of course no geometric tolerances as would be expected for a component produced in such huge masses. Judging by this I still think a course surface wasn't such a drastic factor in this test.
@@rodjaknenad6984 because you arent supposed to use brick by itself? Normal application would be to use cement as the glue and filler inbetween bricks, so technically you do spread the force quite evenly if say a wall is put on top of these bricks foundation.
@@Crustee0 Fair point, I was just considering the scenario where you load them directly for whatever need you might use them for. The test is indeed a bit inadequate when considering a load case with a filler.
Развлечения
So a lot of people have covered this already, but I feel like some might still get the wrong impression from this, as if manufacturers today are cutting costs at the expense of safety, and “they don’t make em like they used to”.
Modern bricks are made more with small air pockets in them like a sponge, for several reasons. One; to lighten the load (and certainly reduce a bit of labour cost). Two; reduces the affects of temperature, moisture and high winds expanding and contracting and causing structural issues, as they would very easily with older bricks. Three; makes heating/cooling the interior easier without resorting to types of insulation like asbestos. Four; makes them cheaper and easier to produce in the first place. Five: reduces the thickness of walls necessary just to support their own weight.
Modern day buildings don’t use bricks as load-bearing walls; they’re basically just there to keep the weather out, and don’t need to be as strong. Older buildings used brick walls as load-bearing walls, so they had to be tougher, thicker and heavier… meaning much more expensive, more reliant on asbestos insulation, and more likely to crack or rot under wide swings in temperature or heavy moisture. They were also much less safe in the event of hurricanes/tornados, earthquakes, etc.
Of course there’s also a “survivorship bias” element - these are bricks that were built strong enough to last, rather than your average old brick from 1980/1950. The 2021 brick was likely just an “average” brick, not a particularly strong one for the day.
Wonderful analysis! Thanks for the insight
The best comment here has a mediocre amount of ‘likes’ whilst other utterly stupid comments get hundreds of likes, there is no sense to the world.
Agreed, engineering is way more than just designing the strongest object. There are many more facets that are involved especially in modern day buildings. People seem to forget that regulations have dramatically increased since the 1950's and objects that were fine then would not adhere to modern building codes now.
tbh was even wondering if/in wich manner the age of the brick/effect of time were not changing their property to start with
along with the idea you mentioned that those were clearly among the good one since well they susrvived till now ^^
Well they don't make 'em like they used to; But that don't mean that any corners have been cut.
What it does mean, is that methods of manufacturing, and mass production, have changed. I mean we can't all be building like the Ancient Egyptians, and have our buildings stand the test of time; It would take far too long, and far too many resources, to do so.
Whether the old ones were strong right from the beginning or gained its strength over the years is an interesting question.
They werent stronger. They were much larger.
Actually i have read somewhere that buildings also need Oxygen ! Without oxygen for 5 seconds all building will collapse instantly like a house of cards
@@Ognyan397 that's terrifying
Been debunked by action lab. It’s not true
@@toiletpaper5770 yes! So i guess that maybe Oxygen accumulate into the building and their components , that is why they get tough with time!
His grand father and father collect bricks for this guy to perform crazy hydraulic press experiment. What a legend
The strength of concrete depends on the cement content and the age. Lower cement content, less strength. Also, concrete doesn’t set, it goes off, it is a chemical reaction more than a drying. This means it will keep getting stronger for possibly hundreds of years.
It also looked like the "modern concrete" sample was uneven and the force was concentrated on small areas, where the older sample looked very smooth and the force was spread evenly. That could have been a factor with the bricks as well.
If that were the case old cement bridges wouldn't be falling down
@@KairiPluck Generally, old concrete structures fail or need repair due to durability issues caused by the steel reinforcement. Structural failure is rarely due to loss of concrete compressive strength
That’s a good point. Well noted
@@teoengchin ...why making them with steel reinforcement then? If they are a weak point? If they fail before cement? Nah. I doubt steel is more fragile than cement. It can't be like that. The strongest bridges are steel only.
I bet the guy from 1890 that made the brick would never have thought that one day his brick would be used in an online demonstration.
The only thing he’d know about on line is chucking laundry on a drying line.
You're absolutely right, he would have never thought of the internet.
That'd be a weird ass thought for him to have
I mean Online things didn’t exist But Ye
Sorry, but you’re wrong there, chap. I knew it the very day I made that brick that it was destined to be seen by the world through a yet unknown “magic light.”
Can’t believe this guy decided to stay alive all this time just to test the strength of bricks. Such dedication on his part.
I agree. dang
Now he can finally rest.
But he is not hundreds of years old he bought the bricks somewhere
I know this was a joke I just felt like ruining it for everyone
You're a good human
@@Black_Kakari the one aboveyou isnt
One thing to note is the use of each, for instance, the antique concrete was taken from a fort meant to withstand artillery shells while the modern one was most likely commercial concrete which I would assume would be weaker.
Also the modern brick maintained its shape and load bearing potential much longer than the initial crack, up to 5200 kg.
My favorite engineering principal is that you're only done engineering when there's nothing left for you to take away. A modern brick is strong enough to make a house of, and not a significant amount stronger. I'm sure it's lighter, easier to work with, consumes less materials and time to create and is a more economical solution than bricks of 1890.
It's actually more about removing cost than removing material
yeah don't really care, id still choose to live in a house built with 1890s bricks
@@1199ccttv It's a lot harder to heat during winter
@@stvden no it isn't. I live a pre 20th century home and my power usage both electric and gas are 1/3 the area average as calculated by my service providers.
@@1199ccttv If you live in an earthquake hazard area, it doesn't matter how strong the brick is, it'll be a pile of rubble with you underneath if it hasn't been seismically retrofitted. As has been mentioned in other comments, modern brick is never used for structural applications unlike with the old buildings, it is mostly just used for aesthetics.
The outcome of this test had so many variables such as material quality, production skill, manufacturing location, material age, material depth/width/length, placement etc. It was enjoyable & interesting to watch!
@@dingzhixu3678 the way the bricks were manufactured would greatly effect the quality of the bricks though
u see back in the day bricks were strong now days u have these weak liberal social justice bricks
@@dingzhixu3678 Right, so the way something is manufactured has no bearing on it’s quality. Did you even read what you wrote?
No.. I'm saying, the testing method is just a method for easy comparison.. The way it's manufactured, I'm intimate with every method of brick manufacture and QC has been half my life trying to build an independent brand name.. Every part of production is important in determining its end quality, but raw material and the burning process determines hardness, manufacturing determines its finish look (contry to untrained eyes, rough surfaces is better than smooth)
You sound like my teacher making interesting things boring
"Don't repeat at home" Damn, I was looking forward to using this hydraulic press and 130 year old brick I have lying around!
Litigators gonna litigate.
I don’t have a hydraulic press but my houses chimney was 130 yrs old and they’re the same exact bricks
Ikr
That is so funny and original dude. I'm sure you weren't waiting for the day you'd get recommended this guy's video again so you could repeat the same unfunny joke that's made on every other one of his videos. Honestly bravo, you really blew this one out of the park. I literally laughed my ass off.
@@starman4840 yeah me too
I found it a bit melancholy to see that last block of concrete from 1890 finally go. Something about it having been around for so long, and still lasting longer than all the others. I wonder how long it would have been around into the future
1890 cannot actually be called "antique", it's literally just a bit more than 1 century back. Only items which do not tend to survive as long (i.e books) have higher value if they are more than 100 years old. Many people still live in houses which are much older than that.
@@tihonannenkov4114 can you name a person that is born from 1800s that is still alive today?
I'm curious 🤔
@@eugene531 what? Re-read my comment.
@@tihonannenkov4114 oh yeah right my bad 😅
But actually curious 😂😂
My great grandfather, who lived til I was 9, was born in 1895. So at least there are people alive that have MET someone from the 1800s.
Our forefathers:This will last for generations.
Today: This will last exactly as long as it needs to.
I remember as a kid of 8 years old a guy was laying new sidewalk. He told me the concrete takes 24 hours to get half strength and 24 years to get full strength. I'm 63 now. Interesting the things you remember. Very interesting video.
in Italy the curing of the concrete is considered completed after 28 days (after which it can receive bearing loads) and reaches the final strength in 3-4 years. It depends on many factors
I've already said this, and it's a very risky thing to say. Imagine you are on an island, and there is another island over there. And you want to conquer it. And they are ruled by a strong leader.
"Oh but they are disciplined, and they obey their leader. It's impossible to defeat them." Ah, then we will impose democracy on them. Democratic propaganda! We will promote the most democratic way.
"Oh, but they have nationalism! They will sacrifice themselves to protect their land." Ah, we will spread globalist ideology. Remove all notions of nationalism and patriotism, promote these ideas as evil. Turn them against each other so they will hate their own country and race.
"Oh, but they also have incredible faith in God! They have such faith in God that they never abandon the front." Ah, then let's promote atheism and hedonism. Church time is over. From now on, only night clubs and pornography. They must be open about sex.
"Oh, but the youth are healthy and strong. They're in formidable shape. They are the way the Creator made them: in his image." Ok then, from now on McDonald's, Coca-Cola, drugs, alcohol, video games. Let them be fat, lazy, weak, domesticated, undisciplined. We must abolish military service.
"Ah... yeah but the other thing is that they are homogenous. They are a single people, a single race. There is no ethnic chaos." Ok, then in whatever way, we must send them boats with foreigners - whites, blacks, Asians, Muslims, Chinese.
"But they have a lot of babies! 6 or 7 babies on average! They're happy to have large families!" Ok, from now on promote abortion, birth control pills. They must be individualistic and reject starting a family.
You have now defeated that island without firing a single bullet.
Thats correct, but these are clay bricks, once cooked they remain the same, like pottery.
Cement in the other hand keeps absorbing oxygen.
@@santiagoperez2094 No, they are cement bricks. At least most of them were. I believe one or two may have been clay.
its 28 days
I think there's more to consider than just hardening over time. There's also a survivorship bias. The bricks created so long ago which survived until today were likely the stronger bricks made to begin with. The ones with critical imperfections would have been broken already, leaving the superior bricks to be tested now. Today's bricks haven't had that 'test of time', so you're likely testing a mid or sub-quality brick against a superior brick, even if they were made exactly the same way of the same stuff.
You have to also remember that modern bricks are produced in much more uniform manner; there's less quality variation, since more things in the process of making them are optimized further and controlled more closely. Thus; while there are less "weak" bricks made, there are also less "superior" bricks made.
Biologist’s way of thinking
Also, stronger does not necessarily means better
Who needs a brick that can withstand 2 tons when in your particular application you only need 500kg ?
We are much better at saving materials today than we were 100 years ago (on this particular topic)
Sample selection bias 👍🏼
> There's also a survivorship bias.
No there is not. There are literally tens of thousands of buildings with old bricks in Europe. They are all there and they are not really losing any bricks.
Once a grown man said, "Old is Gold"
Do realize it changes everything when you go from a small surface area on the press to the large surface area used for the concrete. You should keep the same surface area for the first test through the last test to keep consistency and accuracy
Why would they use their time on doing that. It's more of a fun video to look at.
@@FogandRain227 Actually the waste more time by swapping em so i dunno why tbh
Hey, materials engineer here. Concrete hardens as it ages, chemical reactions within the concrete from both whatever you put into it (called additives in the batching process) and from the environment in which it is used allows the material to increase its compressive and tensile strength. A fun fact, in modern concrete (if memory serves) every day that strength increases by about 1-2% from pouring to about a year to a year and a half depending on environment.
also worth noting that the modern concrete was not 'fired' at a very high temperature (you know, concrete...no kiln....), you can tell my by fact it sort of just falls apart softly.Note that this is why rebar is so important for concrete, its the composite material of these two separate components that gives us the properties and behavior we desire for so many of its applications. Whereas the older pieces fail with an audible sound, and flake like a mini shale deposit into platelets. This is evidence of a higher firing temperature, which given the construction methods of the time, does not surprise me.
On the extreme end of high temperature firing, the brick that exploded into two pieces is an excellent example, though you can find samples where the break is as if you cut it with a knife, with little if any flaking. those are my favorite as they can reach 400k compressive force before failing, and you get a nice cross section! :)
Concrete has great compressive strength but crappy lateral strength...
I don't believe concrete has EVER been fired
This also makes it suspectful that today's bricks are somewhat mixed with some cheap material and made to cut production cost
@@aniketsrivastava1870 Just a thought: Today's bricks may contain more air and be lighter. Because we also look for isolation efficiency?
Hey, material engineer... Are you aware the bricks are CLAY not concrete! lol! Do admit that modern bricks are trash, for obvious reason that they are porous like cheese! Water that gets into those holes and freeze in winter shatters them like a cookie!
"Do not repeat this at home.",
Yea let me just grab my press and some pre historic bricks I found laying around.
1890 is far from being prehistoric.
@@odinswrath86 it was a joke bozo
Lmao
@@odinswrath86 r/whooosh
@@odinswrath86 To anyone wondering about the meaning of prehistoric:
prehistoric - the time before the invention or usage of writing.
Kind of interesting as someone that lives in a house built around 1945! Think one of the things worth noting though at least with the house I live in, is that the bricks do all the heavy lifting as we have no solid walls in the interior of the house (yes this means that we can move them at wanted, which is kind of cool!) So that probably accounts for some of the extra strength needed as modern houses certainly have interior walls that help take the weight.
185 Kg Brick by 2092
That last one is why there are still so many semi-intact WWII fortifications. It's too difficult to dismantle them.
The concrete compression tests were actually very interesting as it continues to cure for decades after pouring so it's hard to say if modern mixes are better tan the older ones
I think planed selfdestruction of a good is nowadays in literally anything, even in a brick.
The tests were not made in equal conditions, since the "modern" concrete is pure concrete, you can see it being converted to dust, but the older concrete has gravel on is composition, so it makes it stronger, since it has more properties for being a composite material. That's one of the reason it could hold more load.
The material is cheaper today resource wise
@@alejandroguerra3411 Well nowadays concrete in general does not contain any gravel anymore, because sandbased concrete became the standard. The only thing that nowadays reinforces concrete are steel insertions, also only used on specific points of a building with a higher contact pressure and weightload.
Pop lo propio l
FYI: Modern brickas are intentially produced with air pockets so that it lighten the burden of brick layers.
Of course they arent as sturdy.
Also, modern bricklaying is usually laid as a shell wall and isnt load bearing in the same way that it used to. It's more of an expensive yet efficient weather surface.
Exactly. Buildings are basically made of steel concrete. The bricks are just aesthetic. The steel inside the concrete deals with the tension forces for the most part.
No , supply in demand. And different buildings practices. Brick layers are not worried about weight. It’s all about Portland to sand ratio. More bricks are needed now then ever in are history. And with a lot of Portland shortages bricks are not made the same
Also worth nothing that the bricks are being compressed in the wrong orientation in this video. I don’t know if modern bricks have any sort of grain structure in them to act as rebar but it’s more than possible that they do
@@austins19982 Bricks are made of clay, not portland cement. You're thinking of cinderblocks.
Did you I ow that safety doesn't matter if your back hurts?
Respect to all the bricklayers elaborating on what we're seeing.
lay a brick think like a brick is what the chippies elaborated to me 🤣
Everyone before clicking: I bet older bricks were stronger
everyone after watching: I knew it
In my experience doing masonry restoration those old brick (from before the days of hydraulic presses in brick manufacture) are a fair bit softer than modern brick. It's interesting to see that the old brick showed the most tensile strength. Maybe not the most scientific test, but fun.
You need to throw them at someone to really get good data on which ones are harder! 🤣🤣 I'm jk
Tensile is pulling apart, the first test was shear.
that is because it has less air pockets then the cheap modern stuff
@Bobbybob Breaking "easier" is relative. I used to work on equipment in labs. I had one that needed to hold pressure and we were at 3000 feet above sea level. The company was bought out by an international corporation who thought they could save money by replacing the glass chamber with plastic. So when the equipment, used to measure blood counts, very sensitive, could not hold pressure anymore they replaced it with a newer improved plastic one. TWICE. Before I got hold of the supervisor of the supervisor and explained WHY plastic did not work at our elevation the way it does at sea level and they found me a glass one that does not BEND at a different elevation therefore not doing the job I needed it to BREAKING the machine.
Actually I'm pretty sure that that's shear strength, but yeah obviously the bricks were different sizes.
"Do not repeat at home"........ Ah, damn it. I wish I'd read that BEFORE I'd got this 100 ton press setup in my living room. :D
Rookie mistake, always set it up in neighbor's apartment while they're out of town or at yoga.
That comment made my day ,brilliant.
LOL!
Now what am i going to do with this random brick from 6000 BC that was blessed by the pharaohs themselves :(
@@Carebear_Pooh You could bring it over to my living room.
I've got to use this press for something as the misses is starting to accuse me of wasting money on it, and it IS kind of in the way of the telly. :D
Great video. Amazing how much old concrete can hold.
note that in a real building the weight would be distributed far more evenly across the bricks, letting them withstand vastly heavier loads
also note that the newer brick is probably lighter so the load it would have to bare in a modern building is realistically smaller
Older clay bricks were hand packed so there were much less air bubbles in the brick when they were fired, however they were also 10 times as expensive than today conventional bricks.
The value of $100 in 2022 is worth approximately $3.50 cents in 1913 dollars. What you're describing as cheaper is actually just inflation, and being conditioned to accept lesser quality goods.
@@JohnDoe-xf2ke Mass production to fuel super fast development. It didn't end well tho
@@JohnDoe-xf2ke Except if you adjust for inflation they are still much more expensive. There's a reason people mechanized things, it's because you can make much more with a machine than if you had a to pay a person to pack them all by hand.
@@samhomework I will pay 10x the price for something that will last much longer.
@@aaronsondag8347 The issue with that thinking though is that just because the brick is stronger under tension doesn't mean its more suitable for the job, being efficient is all about focusing the maximum amount of necessary effort for the most effective completion of a job in specialized and particular ways. A better tensile strength for a brick doesn't mean it lasts longer or is more efficient. This is how you save money and get the most effect, now if you could demonstrate that these mass produced cheaper bricks serve worse for their specific function that would justify the increased cost, then sure, but until you do economics is against you.
The compression test is still technically a beam test since the bricks only make 3 contact points on the flat anvil. Ideally, a bed of sand or something to fill in the unevenness/gaps between the brick and metal base would probably produce more accurate numbers.
No, it's not a beam test. Yes, there are 3 contact points, but that's not enough for a bending test.
To get proper bending stresses, the beam length should be at least 3 times, better 5 times the height of the beam (beam theory). For shorter beams, the stress distribution will not behave like a beam under bending, as shear stresses will occur in a non-negligible size.
And here in the test the failure is clearly shear based. If it would be normal stress based, the crack would start at the bottom below the load introduction point.
However you are right in one point: a gap filler under the supports and load introduction point would be better to avoid stress peaks and lead to a better comparability between the tests. And usually the load introduction points have ball joints / spherical supports.
@@johnscaramis2515 @ 3:03 the crack starts at the bottom…which indicted the bottom surface is in tension and the top is in compression. Which is very beam like at the start. It would be very interesting to see what happens with the brick on a “mortar” bed since bricks are primarily only used in compression.
Agreed. None of these tests actually tell us anything about these bricks. Hell, the 1890's brick is much taller than the rest, so being stronger only means.. well, means it's taller. Also, these bricks are stressed between mortar and between other rows of mortared bricks, meaning that the compression load is spread throughout the brick. Tension (beam) loads may be seen during settling but severe settling of a foundation is going to break just about any construction material, so they're pretty irrelevant.
It’s worth noting that a lot of buildings and structures in the industrial period were heavily over engineered, to the extent that bridges and aqueducts are still present today’s despite having fallen into disuse. They have effectively outlived their operational lifespan. There’s a reason “they don’t build them as they used to” is a saying, since many structures presist over several generations of family despite long becoming inadequate for function.
It’s likely that the newer bricks are less tempered, either as a cost cutting method or to preserve material. But that those new bricks are likely still perfectly fit for its intended purpose. In particular, in the UK we don’t have any earthquakes so the sheer strength isn’t particularly important.
@@lordbiscuitthetossable5352 There's absolutely truth to that. To the many who complain that we live disposably, we absolutely can build things to outlive the lifespan of Roman structures, but no one wants to pay for it. What we seem to lack now is foresight and desire to make the structures that need to last, last.
I'd also add that a brick house doesn't need bricks that could be at the bottom of a 30 story building. The old way was not "let's make everything last forever" so much as "we can't calculate how much stress will be on this part so let's make everything big and heavy enough to that we don't have to worry about it." That's a rather wasteful practice, not a noble one. If they used those highly kilned bricks for houses, it's more likely because logistics chains were not sufficient to stock and deliver as many types of bricks as we have now.
All that to say, between what you brought up (use case is important) and other things, reality is much more complex than the usual "they don't build things like they used to because society is lazy".
Old bricks were used as load bearing structural support. Modem masonry bricks ADD load to the structure, rather than being load bearing, so they are intentionally made lighter.
This is highlighted by the fact that he tested a modern load bearing brick towards the end of the test, and it did far better than any of the others.
Now I really want to test my great great grandpa's self made bricks :D
its crazy how this guy is still young even after living for like hundreds of years
Because he learns from his mistakes
No iT dOeSn’T meAn hE aCcTuAllY wAs HeRE tHe wHOLe tIMe.
@@rawishj5665 it’s a joke
@@ranozairova5137 he was making a joke too
@Dr.FabianStrange77 you dont have to say that it's a joke to express that it's a joke
2 comments about the "concrete" blocks at the end. 1- The first one wasn't concrete, it was mortar. It had no aggregate in it which makes it stronger and makes it concrete. It also seemed to have an abnormal amount of sand. 2- Concrete takes several years to fully cure. 24-48 hours for foot and light vehicle traffic. 28 days for heavy equipment. Decades to reach maximum strength.
When I was a concrete fabricator back in the mid 1980's they often used to say that concrete for example takes 99 years to fully set.
I was pretty upset with the “new concrete” shit literally looks like quick Crete from Home Depot. I’m a laborer “construction worker” and I was like where the fuck is the aggregate. Look at the old Crete compared to the new it looks like 411 stone sand mixed with water and a low concentration of cement and poured stupid wet to make it easy to deal with.
When I saw the new "concrete" crumbling I thought, "It still looks wet on the inside"
There hydraulic press probably couldn't break cured modern concrete so to make it interesting they got bad stuff
Yes exactly, and the moden red brick was fired at lower temerature than the old ones. The lighter hue of red shows. Every stepof the production of bricks matters. And if a brick doesn`t have to withstand high pressure the production costs are lowered such as lowering the firering temperature or duration.
No matter what year they were manufactured, this video proves Super Mario has amazing punching power.
A man who made 1890's brick never thoughts that one day after 132 years, the brick he hold will watch millions people of all over the world
You mean child who made the brick?
@@vandammestijn123 No I think he meant to type man and he did so correctly
I had a seizure reading this
@@DustySiren congrats you missed the joke! (And maybe possible fact)
@@niketuck9687 we aren’t watching the brick, *it’s watching us*
My brother used to do this for an engineering firm called Gracie when he graduated college. All he did all day was pull samples that were from the same batch as Bridges and other structures all over the country, and he crushed them.
Bricks and concrete DO get stronger with age, but they also become brittle and less impact resistant. He did 100+samples a day.
Tell your bro to hook me up with some sick bricks
Can't wait for the study.
@@quietquitter6103 probably just quality check..
@@chimei-tekinaneko8318 A shame, too, because all the lies of the past two years have me hungry for real, tangible information andbas boring as it seems, we just watch this video so the concept has some merit. I yearn to know about the fundamentals.
sure they may get stronger with age, but they were probably just made better for the most part
I saw a thumbnail and legit thought he was gonna compare his hydraulic press with one from 1890
"Don't try this at home" yaa, i have 130 years old brick lying around
Good thing most bricks aren't used in places where shear stress typically matters and compressive strength does
Thanks. Saved me some time. 😅
This needs more upvotes people.
Also, my guess is modern bricks more closely ride the line between cost and strength required to meet the needs of the application, so it's not surprising to find a modern brick performing worse in shear strength and as good or better in compression strength. I would bet those modern bricks are a fraction of the cost of the 130 year old bricks were, when adjusted for inflation, yet still fit for purpose.
@you dont know me Well I'm not saying they have no shear strength. I'm just saying that it's not as important as compressive strength when building a building.
@you dont know me No they don't, all our house are built using double brick, internal-external walls, 2-3 story, shear strength doesn't matter
As a brick expert I can almost guarantee that these are bricks
EDIT: After much deliberation, they might not be bricks. Id like a second opinion
@Bheng Miranda yes he is
@Bheng Miranda hes the brick expert cant you read
I concur
They are images of bricks! Not bricks.
As a brick expert I can guarantee that those are some of the bricks of all time
Don't worry, I won't repeat crushing bricks with an $800,000 hydraulic press at home.
I can’t wait to get home and try this!!!! My 1000KGB hydraulic press “ just a routine tool all homes should have “ hasnt been used in a few!!
The hydraulic press contact points play an important role in the results for each of the brick types. While a single brick can fracture, keep in mind that it's more likely to lose it's bond to adjacent bricks - meaning the mortar mixture could be the source of a structure compromise. You can scale this concept with concrete and see the agregate rocks holding up to forces much longer than the rest of the mixture that bonds it. So, engineers purposely reduced brick hardness over time as they saw use of steel framing increasing in construction. The most fair way to evaluate a single brick is to mortar it to the test device so surface contour contact is uniform.
The newer ones have more air inside them and not as solid as bricks from the 50s and the 1890s. Either way I think the newer ones would've broke because the ones from then were made better.
@@theterminator3907 but does it matter? I think they realized that bricks didn't need to be that strong to begin with, so they did increase air pockets, which deceased strength, but also deceased cost of material. Probably also adds to thermals with all the air gaps in the brick.
@@YouTrolol well it did matter back then, but no not now. We don't really build buildings for defence anymore... really we don't build defense at all unless you count a tank maybe? Again though a tank is more offense than it is defense...
my brain can't handle this wtf
@@davidedds6562 tank out of bricks? or wdym
For entertainment, this was interesting. However, as a true test of identifying the failure of each brick or concrete block is flawed. First, testing the tension of brick is not a valid test as bricks and concrete is designed for compression with very little tension qualities. Second, you used the broken bricks from the tension test to perform the compression tests. Each brick’s size was different and were already damaged by the tension test. When a brick made of clay or concrete properties will changed from the tension test with many micro cracks from the tension failure. Regarding the concrete test, a few issues. First, the fresh concrete was not given enough time to harden to its designed compression strength. It was also tested “on end” as it was obvious this was poured into a wooden mold. That will affect the crystal structure of the concrete. As has been pointed out by others aging the concrete is needed to maximize its’s strength. The “old” block you compared it to is like comparing apples and oranges. That “building” you cut it from could have been designed for handling pounding by cannon balls. The grain in it shows some form of additional material was embedded into the concrete, most likely granite gravel. It may sound like I’m criticizing your demonstration, however, as a long time viewer I enjoy your work. In this case, however, I don’t want people coming away thinking “old is good”. Today’s building materials are subjected to close scrutiny by engineers to avoid the failures you show. In many instances every pour of concrete are subject to presses like yours to ensure they pass the specifications set for the intendant project,.Still fun to watch where the failures occurred in each of the materials.
The "Modern" concrete was lacking aggregate(gravel). This severely reduced its strength, and does not resemble the vast majority of current concrete mixtures.
@@stevenshewey7851 Yupp seemed like pure mortar with too much water content. Proper concrete should take about 3 tonnes per square inch and that's by hand mixing it. More refined mixtures are done in concrete plants.
In addition concrete needs to cure for at least 30 days or more before any work is done on it. It needs to be shrunk slowly so if you are in a hot region you need to wet it daily.
Taking pretty fresh mortar is pretty impressive e that it withstood 6 tonnes.
Even if you wanted to argue and say "old stronger", The amount of time, money, and processing invovled to create a modern building out of modern materials isn't even a competition for what constitutes marginal strength differences under flawed testing circumstances at best.
Kralsın
Do you have a life
Why did I get jump scared on the last brick? 💀💀💀
Imagine travelling 132 years in the past for a 6 minute video.
I love how in the beginning they say "don't do this at home" as if I had an hydraulic press just in my room or something
Edit: y'all in the comments saying that you have one, send me one to Uruguay, I want that Phineas and Ferb experience too
or a 19th century brick floating around
Wait you don't! Thought hydrolic presses in rooms were a common thing haha
They're great for killing flies and making them very thin.
You don't? Jokes
You know what, i went to my room for no reason and BAM! There's a hydraulic press there, what should i do?
About 20 years ago, my family bought an old brick warehouse built in the 1920’s. For some of the remodeling work, we had to cut through the exterior wall, a section of about 6x3x1 feet (the wall being a foot thick). Even with jackhammers that was an all day job.
The wall was probably stronger from the beginning… as you can see most things were made to last as much time as possible until programmed obsolescence became a thing
Accrington brick?
@@fearone9694 They were original ACME.
Dynomite
@@furtado.g_ If the wall was a foot thick, that means that it was structural bricks. And for that same record, many of the old brick buildings in my town had crumbled near the bottom from moisture and had holes through them where the brick crumbled.
Old buildings will degrade and fall apart without any kind of maintenance and they do it all of the time. Just take a drive through any town with old brick buildings and not a lot of money.
My town recently started booming again and as a result, many of the old buildings were being fixed up, which generally meant repointing entire walls of crumbling mortar or straight out cutting sections of the walls out to redo them. Hell, the entire outer layer of one of the most well known buildings in town crumbled off last year. They wrapped the entire building in plastic wrap to prevent further damage (beer company bought it and are supposed to be rehabbing the whole block)
Why are so many people hell bent on proving old brickwork was better than anything ever. What we see standing is only what has survived throughout the ages. It's called survivor bias.
I feel like this test would benefit immensely from multiple tests per period, plus different manufacturers/types per period.
Bricks are like wine. They become better as they get older.
Man, for brittle substrates you gotta use a deforming buffer between the press surfaces and object like a piece of plastic or rubber so the sharp edges, imperfect surface angles and grains don't concentrate force and cause premature fracture. i see this type of thing on many hydraulic press channels and it is really frustrating. Thank you for the video though!
Neoprene pads or sulfer are what we use for concrete compressive strength samples.
I thought about that too, but I thought any high spots in the brick should take care of themselves when under that load. Maybe they could mortar steel plates to the top and bottom? Mortar may be imperfect too, but it’s the kind of imperfection they have to deal with in the real world.
In the last compression tests the load was offset giving premature failure on the right hand side as viewed.
Yes, Simon, why did they run the last concrete test with a different set up??
Long times ago the walls were carrying the load ,so bricks need to be strong , but now its carry by beam and column and bricks are just a partition !😊
you talk here about skyscrapers?
@@BaltaRecords Buildings up to 5 floors max
@@BaltaRecords no skyscrapers use bricks
@@generaliroh842 for decoration, usually it’s just carved paint tho
@@nickgregory543 ye
As someone who has broke a many of concrete cylinders, what kind of aggregate did that modern concrete block have? When it split it just chipped with no larger rocks in sight. I’ve pressed some class S for bridge structures that popped as high as the 1890 fortress structure. To be fair on average it was about 4 tons per SI (so the point that the old stuff is better still applies), but just making sure we’re testing structural grade concrete. The modern break looked like a lot of class A cylinders I used to break, mainly used for sidewalks.
Thanks to your test, we could compare their ingredient mixing ratios.
i am from south america (chile) and concrete is very strictly regulated here for the structures since we have a lot of earthquakes, just using any concrete wouldnt do the work, is quite amazing when we have a 7 to almost 8 richter scale earthquake and we have barely any damage meanwhile other countries structures that are not design for this natural disaster can go down with much lower scale values.
Cheap building is preferred by many companies over effect building, unfortunately.
@@mjrtaurus2714 If all buildings are expensive, then poor people cannot afford to live in them. Variations in quality serve a purpose
We in Japan have the same doctrine. During the 2011 earthquake, it was a wild sight to watch skyscrapers in downtown Shibuya flex left and right without falling. Built to last!
same on my country El Salvador, we had some serious earthquakes over the past years and most of the modern buildings are OK. But building here is expensive because of that
Earthquake? That’s the shimmy shimmy shaking thing, right?
The reason for the modern brick breaking so early in your first test scenario is due to the way it was produced:
An extruder press is used that basically pushed clay forward through a mouth press. that forward push is done by a mechanism that looks like an archimedean screw.
The result is a circular turbulance within the clay that is almost impossible to see but still there. Look at 1:10 - that circular breakage is exactly due to the spin in the screw.
other than that dont be fooled. there is an insane number of different materials and processes for both bricks and concrete which has the most impact on these tests.
this video might make you believe that old materials were better, but thats not true unless you compare apples to apples (in wich case modern facturing wins)
also please consider that "harder is better" is actually not the goal here. both soft and hard bricks are produced deliberately for their very own purpose.
I call it bs! Older is better
@@trolojolo6178 you may do that. but since i work in the field of restoration of historical ceramics (bricks and tiles) i have a pretty broad experience when it comes to those materials. 19th centuries bricks were in a much higher demand than they are now (pretty extreme city grow and a lot more % of buildings used bricks than now). Combined with the fact that long range transport was a lot less economical - the bricks were produced in close proximity to large cities, not necessarily at places where clay was at the highest quality.
In addition their kiln ran with coal, which cannot be run stable at an intended temperatur for a certain time like modern gas or electric kilns do.
are there bricks from the 19th century that are very dense and sturdy? absolutly! can they compete with the maximum that is possible today? nope.
As a potter i agere with that
I have also heared that its always better to use at least 2 or 3 years old bricks that just crafted ones
Probably that helps on the sturdyness
Bruh. No need to exaggerate credentials. This aint your resume. We know you just remodel bathrooms at gas stations. Lol
If it's one thing I've learnt from being in construction is that cement gets stronger with age, and I'm pretty sure the same goes for these clay bricks, so the older should be stronger
Exactly my thoughts to esp if they are exposed to heat
As a bricklayer and owner of my own masonry company, I can explain this pretty quickly.
In the past, bricks were used for the main structure of a building, so they needed to be stronger. They were the main thing that holds up the floors and roof. Today's bricks are just used for DIY paver projects, or siding to wrap the face of a wooden building. In the US, we almost never use bricks in a structural way anymore, unfortunately. We just use them as decorative pieces. So they dont need to be as dense.
All that being said, you can look at bricks from different cultures dating back to ancient times and there are some bricks with a very low PSI (around 400lbs) and orhers closer to 1,200.
I personally never cared much for PSI ratings because we don't houses by the square inch, but by the yard, if anything. Take any weaker material and increase its overall body mass to the size of the empire State building and I guarantee you it will be a strong structure. Size matters.
2:28, ...& they said, "old is gold!".......Absolutely True!!!
The older bricks were probably meant for structural purposes so they had to resist more compression forces while modern bricks are often used only as divisory elements so the dont have to resist as much, nowadays concrete structure is what resist the weight of the building.
modern bricks are engineered to isolate from heat better
My thoughts exactly.
I worked for a brick manufacturer, not actually making them just in the office but I do recall there were different types of bricks for different purposes. Engineering bricks were extremely hard, apparently designed to build viaducts.
@@anthyatt6904 makes sense, you wouldn't want the viaduct to collapse with all the cars etc on them
@@anthyatt6904 Pretty much this. A lot like those 'They Don't Make them Like they Used to Videos' just comparing an old and new thing at random completely lacks context.
That doesn't mean modern structural bricks aren't also weaker, but if they are, it's probably because their use cases are well known and the stresses they'll endure are well understood and their load capacity is probably much more consistent.
I really loved seeing old bricks ❤️
one of the real world problems you see with old concrete is that it was inconsistent. each Manson had his own technique and methods and they would often through construction debris into the mix. random rocks and chunks or brick etc. i recently demolished some concrete cannon stands from the late 1800s because they began to crumble. water eventually found its way into a piece of brick inside which freezes and expands during the winter and it slowly broke them apart from the inside.
Water is amazing isn't it?
This isn't concrete. But the same rules apply. And if it was quality? Older concrete is always stronger. Its beem curing for 100's of years. Try chipping, core drilling, wall sawing or wire sawing old concrete. Its a fucking paind it it is either black or blue on the inside. Slurry speaks for itself
@@boostedb18b14 older concrete was stronger because of the Lime additive, not because of “time”
I think the reason why modern red brick is more fragile than older bricks is that red brick isn't really used as a building material anymore since it's been replaced by concrete, rebar, and cinder blocks and is more decorative so the material is either cheaper or made to be more aesthetically pleasing than durable.
because you dont need that kind of durability the ol ones have
Also weather protection. Air pockets make it more durable against water and better at insulating.
Can’t beat a bit of brick jeopardy for entertainment.
Old bricks are like oldies songs: those that still remembered are the best of all times.
Isn't the modern brick "weaker" in comparison because it has trapped air in it to help in thermal insulation, thus lowering heating costs for the building their used in and reduce waste of materials to heat buildings, while still being usually strong enough by magnitudes than it needs to be?
In many modern construction methods the brick facade lays outside the moisture envelope with a small air gap between: they aren't structural at all except to hold themselves up. The insulation of the house is typically inside the envelope. The air gap is to allow condensation a way out. So bricks can help with insulation as yet another layer, but I'd suspect lighter weight bricks are easier to make, transport, and handle.
@@granatmof I didn't know that there was an airgap involved, learned something new today, thanks.
Nope
Actually modern bricks are made using machines that shape, cut and cook them instantly, like a production line, while old brocks were cooked in ovens over days, letting the material form bonds and structure itself, making it stronger. Also most good clay deposits were exhausted long ago, so modern bricks use clay of lesser quality.
Modern bricks also do better in tension compared to older bricks
6:20 Were you allowed to destroy a brick from an 1800's fortress, lol
That's what I was thinking 🤔
Probably also depends on what you want the brick/concrete used for. You dont want to used fortress strength materials or something like pool patio the may or may not be torn down at some point.
Did anyone else besides me get scared when the bricks broke? 😂😢
Respect to all the fallen bricks who gave their lives for this
Keep in mind, you can only test the 'old ones' that survived. Thats always a thing you have to keep in mind. I dont know where the bricks came from but if it is the only 'in one part' remainder of an old building these tests can be deceptive. Because it are the strongest ones
Much similar to engineers only focusing on the shot parts of the planes that survived when asking how to make war planes smaller
That is a very good point
@@mikeg8752 Yes indeed! This knowledge I gained from that story
This is why 2000 year old ancient structures are still standing and anything build the last 20 years already needs repairs
This video is a perfect metaphor for the greed and quality in the Western world.
You could draw the conclusion that things aren't built to last as they used to be, but maybe we found out that bricks and concrete doesn't have to be as strong to do its job right. Weighing the bricks beforehand would have yielded some useful info as maybe the bricks are also twice as heavy. Seeing as lighter bricks only have to support half the weight as the bricks placed on top would also be lighter, it's just more cost efficient and less straining on natural resources
With the modern concrete, you can tell the force was coming in at an angle, as one corner was higher up, skewing the results. Putting all the force on one point creates more shear force than when the weight is distributed across the entire area, so the actual load bearing capacity of all those materials is a lot higher than what's shown here, but the relative strength of the materials is compared pretty effectively for the bricks, since they were subjected to the same process every time.
The brick finatic
With basic "modern" engineering you can tell that concrete is actually soft. That's why they use rebar to reinforce it. That's also why galloping Gertie was able to flex and how "modern" sky scrapers are able to sway (look that up if you think it's not a thing). Yes the corner was higher... The test was probably skewed by a max of 3% from that. A "perfect" block would give numbers within the margin of error when compared to the one we just saw.
And if anyone is curious another reason concrete is soft is to allow it to expand and contract when it gets cold or hot. It also takes an extremely long time to fully "cure" since it would not be desirable for it to cure before it fully settles. There are many different recipes for concrete and everywhere in the world is different. This is why we have engineers. They will figure out how much of each ingredient to put in for the type of climate and type of earth under it. They will make it less porus and more malleable in colder climates that are more prone to freezing past a certain point of depth. That way your foundation doesn't just crack after one winter (water expands when it freezes and WILL crack your foundation).
@Error im Codingkeller The old bricks actually all have a slight positive curve, if they had been flipped "upside down", I believe they would break much, much earlier.
And u can tell by looking the modern concrete is NOT completely dry
It would have been more interesting to test the bricks the same way you did the concrete, as bricks are designed to take weight over their whole surface area and not just focused on a certain point.
Yep, would better represent their overall strength too, since this test really just tests the strength of the middle spot
here where i live the main spots of the building have larger bricks, plus i never saw shitty briks like the 2022 ones
Sidebar: for a better chance of surviving a nuclear bomb, your best hope is a brick building.
That first block of concrete surprised me. It looked and sounded like a sand castle being crushed.
“Do not repeat this at home”
Me, who has no old bricks or hydraulic presses:
If he can upload a video about hydraulic press vs hydraulic press I will literally join his membership if he has it
Lol😅😅😅
How would he even execute that?
It looks like u don't believe me but I trust this channel to watch everyday!
That's gonna destroy the whole universe if he does that.
I'm pretty sure he did a bottle jack already and that is pretty much what you are talking about.
Since I haven't seen anybody mention it, I'd like to add that the concrete taken from the fortress was intended for military defense, being as it's a fortress, while the other block of concrete was likely just some home project concrete from a bag from the store. Surely if you took modern fortress defense concrete and compared it to historic fortress defense concrete the results would be different
Yeah, and if they wanted the test to be more legit, they would have made rebar enforced concrete. Let's see how much force that can take since most structural concrete these days has rebar in it.
Still a neat video.
@@TeodorSpiridon For real. "Ooh, strong machine smoosh stuff" is a pretty weak concept for a channel with so much more potential
“Military Grade” isn’t that good honestly. Lowest bidder
Everyone's talking about the bricks... the old vs new concrete was what impressed me most
Imagine "surviving" 100s of years to be destroyed in a test you can't win XD
🤓动作非常好？ 哈哈哈动作非常好 差不多一样冰淇淋 再见什么？我不是你醉了吧我睡觉了先你给我一口把详细？
@@silkic translated this and i don't understand 💀
@@silkic bro what the fuck
@@noxzack7745 r u dum
@@noxzack7745 🤓 喝了点酒吧主题词语文的时候是一起，跟他在这样一个评论者们在一起吧。 已有之间有🈶
I test concrete - I was basically checked out on any scientific level when I saw them stop counting the compressive strength of the 2021 brick at 3800 kg when the corner fell off. (2:40) The center, directly under the load, continued to bear weight up to 5000 kg. If you want an actual strength test you need to cut the brick down to a cross-section smaller than the ram. Ideally you also want to sulfur/mortar cap the sample for absolute even application of the weight.
You're also using uneven sample sizes, so raw numbers ("this brick broke at X weight") don't mean anything, you need pounds/pascals per square inch to have a real comparison.
Isso
@@joseeustaquiosilvadebarros904 isso mesmo
Not only to mention that you need multiple samples and a statistical analysis for outliers and what you expect. There’s so many things here that wouldn’t pass ASTM standards as testing a material.
thats why i love the comment section, thank you for explaining the flaws of this test. I dont test concrete but this testing didnt felt right or fair to me... even bc i believe we use different ways to build houses and much much more reliable materials that hold and distribuite way better the weight and energy of the building.
You mean like a cylinder test?
I cant wait to repeat this at home with my 57 thousand dollar hydraulic press
“Do not attempt at home” like I have a hydraulic press
Awesome and informative test, although you'd need a larger sample size to be sure... plus shaving flat spots on the contact points to ensure they are all equally supported.
Well, "...you can't please everyone!"
@@dustymiller65 It's not about pleasing anyone, it's about being consistent. The contact points on those bricks are not the same. The ones farther to the middle will be much more resistant to breaking.
@@endgovernmentextremism
To me, they're just bricks; some old some new, but bricks nonetheless.
BUT, my geekish friend--I see your point now; so I agree with you. ✓
usually a neoprene sheet or buffer material is needed to spread load across a shaved/trimmed surface
I'm beginning to see now that the breakage test should correctly aligned with the normal axis for the standard brick's normal usage. That would just make more sense.
A good comparison is to convert the kg to Newton’s/kg taking into the account the density of the bricks, secondly cement is a hydrate reaction and increases strength over time. I worked for a cement company and experienced the breaking of 10, 15 and 20 year old 100mm standard cubes, the building shook when they broke, took the crushing machine to near its maximum load.
crazy that we can't make cement as good as the romans still, especially in the sea/water environment
@@michaelkaster5058 there is a way to make concrete suitable for sea water, using ground blast furnace slag or pulverised fly ash together with ground limestone which greatly increases the concrete strength and resilience to sea water attack. I worked on a project which uses self compacting concrete with PFA and limestone powder in a concrete mix and it produced excellent results, it didn’t need any compacting poker methods just a straight pour, very interesting reactions taking place.
@@johnmansell5097 have you ever heard of concrete that sets underwater, i was told the romans used it to make ports, do you know anything about it?
@@TS-jm7jm its a common thing, how else would we build piers and bridges
@@guguigugu the roman one i mean
One reason why the older bricks have a higher shear strength is that concrete mixtures become harder over time. This is easily demonstrable by performing 7,14, 28, & 56 day cylinder breaks on the same concrete mixture. The vast difference though is not explained by this hardening effect. What does explain it is the reformulation to create lighter bricks which significantly reduce both shipping costs and back injuries. These two factors account for the fastest increasing factors in the cost of bricks. The final consideration is insulation value. polystyrene is added to our many of our current brick formulations which lowers the weight increases the R-Value, and unfortunately reduces the compressive strength. However, this reduction is negligible in the bricks performance when installed.
Very interesting video!
It really makes me wonder: how strong can bricks be made today if they were designed to be as strong as possible? Today's bricks are typically made with different applications vs just holding up walls.
everyone's talking about the bricks getting harder over time while I'm over here appreciating the fact that we even made machines that can put thousands of pounds worth of force on like this
My biggest fear is getting squashed by hydrolic press.
that's not really new technology, it's been around for as long as your mum
@@sohailape hydraulic press nightmares 😨
Well you're 5 years old.
@@sohailape I used to get nightmares in my sleep of getting caught in a massive combine or meat grinder. Some scary stuff. Or I’d get dreams of getting ran over by a train.
04:37 "It's Over 9000!"
-Vegeta
There is a difference in a structural brick , decorative one and a kiln one. So a hard test to prove.
4:55 concrete can still be wet years or decades down the line so I'm not surprised... The new ones is definitely still very wet and you can tell with how it's almost like sand when crumbling.
I’m a builder and have overseen and QC’d tens of thousands of bricks installed. Modern bricks, full of air bubbles and cavities for better insulation value and freeze tolerance, are used for facades with the actual structure being concealed behind them with an air gap and usually some type of water proof insulation like mineralwool.
Bricks actually are a very brittle building material and are rarely used for any type of load bearing anymore. There are much better modern techniques that are hidden behind the brick wall you see that won’t collapse should a wall get hit, as would happen with a traditional brick wall.
For a builder you do not seem to know an awful lot. There are still massive victorian viaducts consisting of millions of bricks still carrying heavy loads to this day, over a hundred years later. Your cheap imported chinese air bricks you use to cut costs will not stand the test of time as not whatever you’re building
@@Brandalar using your logic, we should all be be living in pyramids. I also was unaware that they had our modern bubble-filled non-structural bricks back in the Victorian era. It’s almost like the techniques and materials have evolved since then to become more sustainable, energy efficient and affordable to the masses….?
I don’t know what China has to do with this? Bricks are cheaper to produce and ship domestically than import. About the only material we import is quarried stone for countertops, but only when we are buying a literal boat load. And that’s made by Mother Nature.
We use CMU’s (aka “cinder blocks”) filled with concrete and rebar if we need a structural masonry wall nowadays. They are significantly more resilient and stronger than stacked bricks. Or we use precast concrete. Or steel. Or cast in place concrete. Or prefab wall panels. Or one of a hundred other methods.
For being some pretentious guy in the RUclips comment section, you know about as much as I expected you to.
@@baddestmofoalive The pyramids still stand, as do many victorian and roman architecture because they were built well and to last, something 21st century building knows nothing about because of muh "sustainability, affordability and energy efficiency". This is just cutting costs for the coin counters up top and importing cheaper material and labor whilst you build with sub-par materials and people for the sake of "saving the planet", lmao. This video perfectly shows how quality has gone down over the years and you are just coping with your trash bricks
@@Brandalar you are trying to sound intelligent about modern building materials and techniques. You are failing. Cutting costs and finding more efficient ways to make housing affordable is very important for society. You clearly have no real world experience, and it’s painfully obvious.
Edit: I see you deleted your most ignorant post. Good call.
Sadly those "newer" (even 10years+ back) type of bricks tend to have humidity in them,reject it and wite spots appear.
Not good for visuals appearence.
Modern bricks were visibly more porous for the purpose of better breathability of the building.
Those old bricks are literally solid clay
Interesting
Porous for thermoisolation
@@senatuspopulusqueromanus2082 whatever insulation is provided by the air is miniscule. 99.9% is provided by extra materials such as PU, polystyrene, rockwool, even tenths of an inch will do a lot better than some bubbles in the bricks. No, it's about poor quality. Most "bricks" some today are not actually bricks, but ceramic blocks incapable of holding their own weight past ground floor. Cheaper, crappier, "modern".
@@empyrionin there are fucking tens of millions of new bricks instead of just millions of old. and thanks, I'm familiar with how insulation works.
@@empyrionin Это называется конвекция. Причина по которой термоизоляция воздуха ничтожна
One could argue bricks don’t need to bare as much weight these days as their use is generally limited to small structures like homes and aren’t required to support heavy materials like they did in the past.
Brutal, de los mejores videos!
Una lastima tener que destruir estos objetos antiguos
The first test is effectively a tension test. The bottom half of the bricks experience tension forces as the brick tries to “bend” to match the forces. (BTW, bricks, concrete, and the likes are awful at sustaining high levels of tension.)
The compression tests are much closer to what the bricks will behave like in normal use cases.
Interesting, but the tests lacked any form of surface prep/normalization. Contact surfaces of the bricks were not smooth, thus loading was focused on relatively small, localized points.
I mean, let's be real, it's a brick, they are produced in huge masses and it is not very realistic to expect them to have smooth surfaces, I don't know how strict the tolerances are for bricks but I expect noticable imperfections due to their brittleness. Having a rough surface like in the video is more realistic than doing the test on a smooth surface I'd say.
Of course, even though the test is more realistic it would require a much larger sample size to judge the performance of the average brick due to the randomness of the imperfections.
Then again, I'm not a civil/constructional engineer, maybe I'm underestimating the brick standards.
Edit: I googled the tolerances and it doesn't incredibly strict imo. The imperfections are measured in entire milimeters and there are of course no geometric tolerances as would be expected for a component produced in such huge masses. Judging by this I still think a course surface wasn't such a drastic factor in this test.
It’s also just a fun video….so there’s that.
@@rodjaknenad6984 because you arent supposed to use brick by itself? Normal application would be to use cement as the glue and filler inbetween bricks, so technically you do spread the force quite evenly if say a wall is put on top of these bricks foundation.
@@Crustee0 Fair point, I was just considering the scenario where you load them directly for whatever need you might use them for.
The test is indeed a bit inadequate when considering a load case with a filler.
Sooooo many virgin comments here. The older bricks were stronger just like EVERYTHING else in the past were. PERIOD!